Our team

Scott Humphries. Chairman

Scott is a seasoned executive who has been involved in the establishment of start-up companies as well as M&As in the financial, medical and resource sectors for over 30 years. He holds a Bachelor of Business with specialization in Accounting from University of Technology, Sydney.

He has extensive business experience, notably in asset financing, project development and finance, leasing and business restructuring as well as an active involvement in private Asian investment and the supply of highly technical machinery for the global medical and biotech markets. Previously, he worked for Barclays, Deutsche Bank and more recently, he was a director of Fiambala Resources Ltd Pty, a junior mining company focused on Argentina.

Paola Rojas. Managing Director

Paola is a resource specialist who combines a focus in Latin America with business development, financial and operational expertise. She has 14 years of experience in the management of exploration mining companies, including legal, finance, project management, financial modeling, marketing and business development, communications and public relations. She studied Architecture at National University of Tucuman, in Argentina, and Business Administration and Management, at different institutions including Austral University in Buenos Aires. She holds a Master of Commerce with a specialisation in Finance from the University of New South Wales, in Sydney. Additionally, she is an associate member of FINSIA (Financial Services Institute of Australasia), and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

She began her career at BHP Minerals (now BHP Billiton). She has been a partner at Rojas & Asociados, Mining Consultants since 2000; the firm’s service model allowed her to become a director of subsidiaries of Canadian, American and Australian publicly listed mining companies (TSX; TSX-V; NASDAQ; ASX; NYSE) including Silver Standard Resources and Cliffs Natural Resources.

She is fluent in Spanish and English, and has also intermediate knowledge of Italian, French and Portuguese.

Amalia Benk. Process Manager

Amalia is a process improvement specialist with Industrial Engineering and Australian Migration Law background. She specialises in corporate immigration and business processes; additionally, she has worked in international multidisciplinary projects, juggling various jurisdictions, languages and cultures to design, build and implement corporate systems and processes. She has over 5 years of experience in Australian immigration law and practice and is a registered migration agent and a member of Migration Institute of Australia. She is currently a Manager at one of the Big 4, based in Sydney.

She holds a Bachelor in Engineering and Quality Assurance from Obuda University in Hungary and a graduate certificate in Immigration Law from Victoria University, in Australia. She is fluent in Hungarian, English, with intermediate level of Romanian and Italian.

Analysts and support staff complete our core team.

Advisors

Javier Rojas. Representative & Project Identification.

Mr Rojas has been working in the mining sector in Latin America since 2000. He is currently Director of Rojas & Asociados Mining Consultants and Argentina Mining, and based in Mendoza, Argentina. He has experience in managing exploration projects for foreign companies in Argentina, Chile and Colombia, undertaking corporate matters for clients, as well as organizing international events. He has been a director and/or president of in-country subsidiaries of publicly listed firms such as Cliffs Natural Resources, Osisko Mining, Silver Standard, and Li3 Energy.
He completed postgraduate studies in Corporate Image, and a Master of Science in Project Management from the Swiss Business School. In 2011 he completed the Postgraduate Program of Mining Management at the Austral University, Buenos Aires.
Prior to joining Rojas, he started his career in Graphic Design and worked in several tech start-ups.

Carlos Theune. CTH Limitada. Chile

Carlos Theune is the general manager and principal of CTH Limitada, company that is oriented towards deposit evaluation, marketing and trade of industrial minerals. He has an engineering degree from the Catholic University, in Santiago, Chile and a Master of Science in Geology from the University of Braunschweig (West Germany). He was a Geologist at the Federal Institute for Geosciences and natural resources, Hannover, West Germany, before returning to Chile in 1982.

Over his extensive career he has worked on assessments in field geology, evaluation, process technology and marketing prospects of kaolin, phosphate rocks, refractories, china clays, kieselgur, sulphur, andalusite, salt, borates, lithium, limestone, gypsum, pumice, wollastonite, bentonite, glass sand, titanite, vermiculite, feldspar, borates, and saltpetre, iodine, and many other industrial minerals. Work was done for clients based in Chile, US, Argentina, Uruguay and Germany.

He is a native Spanish speaker and fluent in English and German.

Mario Trotta, Senior Geologist, Brazil

Mario Trotta is a senior exploration geologist who holds a Msc. degree on Iron Ore Petrology and a Specialization on Petroleum Geology both from the University of Rio de Janeiro State, in Brazil.

Mr. Trotta has started his career at Kinross and later has worked for small to large companies such as Petrobras, Cliffs Natural Resources and Anglo American. Experience ranges from all aspects of field geology, with a strong geosciences background, through exploration management and economic valuation of explorations projects across Brazil, Chile, Peru and Argentina.

Mr. Trotta is a member of Society of Economic Geologists since 2010 and speaks Native Portuguese, Fluent English and Advanced Spanish.

Dr Guy LeBlanc Smith. Rock Knowledge Services Pty Ltd. Australia

Guy LeBlanc is the director of Rock Knowledge Services Pty Ltd. He studied geology and geochemistry in Natal University, South Africa. He is a Qualified / Competent Person for JORC & NI 43-101 reporting. He is principal coal geoscientist with over 30 years experience in coal exploration and mining, sedimentary and structural geology, borehole geophysics, research, patenting, and graphical computing applications development.